Jeepers Creepers: Happy Birthday To My Big Brother!

February 26 marks two important events in my life. Our only grand daughter turns one, and her great-uncle, my brother will celebrate his birthday as well. Lester Lee, alias Uncle Pester, Lester Bob, Plugger and Looney Lester will turn another year older and wiser. Being my older brother, Lester Lee has always been my mentor, teaching me the finer points of carpentry, plumbing, electricity and other not so formal skills such as philosophy, the art of falling off of a roof or out of a tree and not breaking a bone and the importance of a sense of humor. My big brother knows a lot about a lot of things. He was a well known wedding photographer in Tuscon, Arizona, an admired, successful elementary school teacher for over 30 years, a real estate developer (similar to Donald Trump), a ham radio operator and a funny uncle to our children.

I can't remember our early growing up years together, which is my memory's fault, until he went off to college at Abilene Christian College, which is now ACU. Lester always went on the wheat harvest during the summer vacation. For you that don't know what that is, it is where you hire out to a custom harvester and perform every job needed on the crew including but not limited to driving the combines, trucks and doing repairs. I later followed in his footsteps and learned that you also spend a lot of time waiting for the rain to stop, the field to dry out or moving on to the next location. He loved it and would do it today if he could.

I recall the time that he and a buddy of his were coming back into town from out in the country. The back seat of his car was loaded down with phonograph records. Here they were, sailing down a dirt road, not a care in the world. Until---they discovered they were one road over from the intended road and this one dead ended into a T. Results---broken records everywhere and the fence at the end of the road and his car were in a general state of disrepair. Thankfully, no body got hurt and the next day was spent fixing the fence. He had a thing for cars. No one could pack as much into the trunk of a Camaro as he could.

Later in life we would spend much more time together as we built his house together and worked on a number of apartments and rental property. I learned a lot from him that I continue to use today. Jennifer is especially close to Lester and now we have two reasons to celebrate February 26. Happy Birthday brother and many more.